There are numerous devices for delivering medicament on the market and also patented where the medicament is arranged in a container, such as a syringe, cartridge and the like, and wherein the medicament is exposed to pressure when it is to be delivered. A very common design is a generally tubular compartment having a stopper in one end of the compartment and a needle unit attached to the opposite end of the compartment.
In order to deliver a quantity of medicament, the stopper is exposed to pressure, i.e. pushed into the compartment by a pusher rod, which could be done manually by a finger of a physician or trained person, which is the case for simple handheld syringes, or by pressure means such as springs or compressed air cartridges, which is common in automatic or semi-automatic injectors.
In many instances it is desirable to be able to deliver a certain specified quantity of the medicament. This is for example the case with a multi-dose injection device, which is capable of delivering a number of specified, set, doses until the compartment is empty. One example is disclosed in the European patent application No. 05104734.8 where specific doses can be set before injection. The injection device disclosed is arranged with spring means for exerting a pressure on the medicament for delivering a specific dose, i.e. pushing the plunger rod and thus the stopper into the container. The delivery of a dose requires a certain force from the spring means in order to overcome the friction between the somewhat resilient stopper and the inner surface of the container and also to be able to press the medicament in liquid form through a rather small passage in the needle, possibly within a predetermined time.
Due to the elasticity of the components under pressure such as the stopper and also the medicament of non-newtonian, there is a prevailing pressure even when the stopper has been moved a predetermined distance and the dose has been delivered. This is in particular pronounced when handling medicament with rather high viscosity, medicament having resilient properties.
With this type of substance with high viscosity, and because very small needles are often used, a rather large force is required and because of the elasticity of the components, often a certain small quantity of the substance comes out of the needle even after performed injection when the pressure is released, i.e. there is some dripping from the needle, which is unwanted, in particular when treating a patient and the substance may be dripping on the patient's skin, possibly causing irritation or inconvenient, undesirable effects.
The above mentioned gel-based substances are typically injected manually, i.e. a normal type of syringe is used. Because of the rather large forces required for injecting the substances, and also due to the many small injections needed for a treatment, it is tiresome for the operator to use such a syringe during a treatment.
There are thus a number of aspects that are addressed with the present invention.